2003-09-14 04:00:00 PDT Burbank -- Actress Olivia Wilde would rather talk about romance than porn. After all, her character is one of the few in the new Fox drama "Skin" that has no dealings with the adult entertainment industry.

"Skin" updates "Romeo and Juliet" against a backdrop of pornography and politics. Wilde (as Jewel Goldman) and D.J. Cotrona (as Adam Roam) play the star-crossed lovers. Jewel's father Larry Goldman (Ron Silver) is a captain of the adult entertainment industry who's made a fortune from sex videos and X- rated Web sites. Adam's father Tom Roam (Kevin Anderson) is the morally outraged Los Angeles district attorney intent on prosecuting "Golden International."

Asked if she did any research on the adult entertainment industry, headquartered just a few miles north in the San Fernando Valley, Wilde shakes her head with an emphatic "no."

"My character has absolutely no contact with the industry," she says. "(Screen father) Larry Goldman keeps his family away from his work. But just working on the show is like doing research. The other day, I was here for a table read and some of the (adult entertainment) girls were here shooting. One second we're doing this adorable scene of the young lovers, me and D.J., making out under an oak tree in Malibu looking like little angels. The next minute, it's some hospital scene with porn stars. This show has a pace and juxtaposition that's just relentless."

That edgy energy is what attracted Wilde, who just turned 19 and arrived in Hollywood mere months after graduating from Andover, the tony Massachusetts prep school.

"We're experimenting with something that is very scandalous in some ways, very pure in others," she says. "When I read the script, I realized, this isn't a cop show, it isn't a hospital show, it isn't a '90210' teenager show. 'Skin' is following an unbeaten path."

Executive producer Jim Leonard hatched "Skin" by fusing two earlier premises that never made it to prime time. He'd pitched an interracial "Romeo and Juliet" series four years ago for Warner Bros. Television. Later he came up with a sex crime show, which was ditched once the studio learned "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf planned to make the similarly-themed "Special Victims Unit."

After creating the short-lived "Thieves" series for ABC two years ago, Leonard returned to his twin interests. "I figured, why not put those two worlds together? Why not take the twisted passions of adult entertainment and politics and contrast it with this kind of pure love that we all wish for?"

Given the subject matter, "Skin" would seem better suited to cable, where networks are unconstrained by Standards and Practices departments.

"I'm interested in those limitations," Leonard says. "If I did this show on cable, there'd be an expectation of lasciviousness. By doing it on broadcast television, it becomes more about the characters."

Once "Skin" got the green light from Fox, Leonard learned more about the adult entertainment business and was shocked by its sheer volume. "This is almost an $8 billion-a-year industry," he explains. "To put that in perspective, Disney made $1 billion last year."

Accordingly, Leonard says porn executives are legit corporate types who bear faint resemblance to old school producers like Russ Meyer or San Francisco's Mitchell brothers.

"I expected these guys to be mobbed up, but when I met some of the leading businessman in that industry, I was surprised by how much they were like the leading businessmen in my industry," Leonard says. "It's the same kind of thinking: They look at their product and try to figure out, 'How can I market it, how can I multiplatform it and maximize exposure and maximize my profit?.' "

Silver is showing a bit of skin himself as he reviews a new script in his sweltering dressing room. Dressed in shorts, no shoes or socks and an undershirt, Silver explains that Larry Goldman's seemingly value system presented a challenge he couldn't resist.

"Complexity of character is what intrigues me," Silver says. "Like most people, Larry Goldman has scruples in some areas and he's more lax in others. A lot of executives have values they want to inculcate in their children, but when they go to their business they deal with people on an entirely different level and can be quite ruthless."

So, how to explain devoted family men who make sexploitation films with women not much older than their own daughters?

"They compartmentalize," he says.

Silver looks forward to future story lines that dig beneath the surface of the sex business.

"I'm interested in the investigation of the industry itself and the compromises that so many supposedly mainstream American enterprises are involved with," he says. "For instance, a large proportion of the revenue comes from selling pay-per-view videos in relatively staid hotels. You turn to your right, you get the adult film for $11.95. Turn to your left and you get the Bible at the night table. And the shareholders don't want to know."

Some viewers will doubtless tune in to "Skin" for the sizzle, but producer Leonard says he's interested in a bigger picture. Adult entertainment represents the nexus of a cultural debate he believes will only grow more heated in the coming years.

"We are at a crossroads," Leonard says. "There's a general sense among many people that we've gone a bit far, and yet we're not sure where the line should be drawn. I'm ridiculously liberal on many things, but as a parent of two teenage boys I suddenly find myself thinking, wait a minute: Why are my kids exposed to hard core pornography before they have their first kiss? How did that happen? Much of it is due to the Internet and the mainstreaming of adult entertainment. As a writer I'm utterly against censorship, but as a parent, I want to protect my kids."